Gene Therapy’s Lessons for Stem Cell Treatments

Stem cell researchers ought to pay attention to how the risks of gene therapy are evaluated and perceived, says University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan.

He mentioned that while talking about the history of other techniques that, though far more risky, weren’t greeted with the same level of suspicion — and, arguably, alarmism — as gene therapy. There wasn’t room for it in the article I just finished, but I thought I’d pass it on here:

There are lessons here [in the critical response to Jolee Mohr’s death] for embryonic stem cell research: the same problems are going to arise. There’s big expectations, a lot of hype, and embyronic stem cells have to be put into the body, kind of like gene therapy. You’ve got to get them to go where you want them to go, if you’re trying to repair nerves or build back heart muscle. Maybe you’re not doing that many animal studies, because people are pressing to get a shot at treatment for some terrible disease — and if you get a death, your critics are going to be all over you. If I was interested in embryonic stem cell research, I’d be watching this gene therapy experience very closely in terms of oversight, subject selection, informed consent, maybe having the IRBs do careful subject-by-subject review.

The sort of oversight Caplan describes could be applied to gene therapy research on non life-threatening diseases — taking extra care to make sure it’s done as carefully as possible, even excluding people who would like to participate if they have other options.

Such measures will strike some people as being overblown. But as we’ve seen with gene therapies, accidents and unintended effects are big news
— and this might not be entirely fair, but it’s reality, and until gene therapy and stem cell therapies are better understood,they ought to be used carefully. Image: University of Delaware